


Through Smoke, From the Shadows

by BrightneeBee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Biting, Blood Play, Canon deviation, Character Turned Into Vampire, Dark!Snape, F/M, Hate Sex, Lovers To Enemies, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Vampire Bites, Vampire Sex, Vampire!Hermione, Violent Sex, different characterizations, vampire mates, vampire!Snape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:40:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27455122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrightneeBee/pseuds/BrightneeBee
Summary: Even in death, Hermione Granger proves to be an insufferable know-it-all swot, and Severus Snape will not stand for her disrespect, nor her insolence. Even in death, Snape maintains his intense, dominating presence…
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 9
Kudos: 47
Collections: Page 394 Guy Fawkes Bonfire Exchange 2020





	Through Smoke, From the Shadows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slytherinsubmarine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherinsubmarine/gifts).



> Gift to @slytherinboy for the Guy Fawkes Bonfire Night Exchange hosted by discord server Page 394! I'm sorry it's not much, but I hope you like it, at least a little!
> 
> Special thanks to @draughtofpeace for reading over this fic constantly and poking me to finish it in time, and @jalapeno_eye_popper for being an awesome beta on this!

**THROUGH SMOKE, FROM THE SHADOWS**

Smoke curled over the grounds of Hogwarts. The clock tower struck twelve in the afternoon, as ominous clouds rolled in. The lack of sun blanketed the surrounding moors in gloom and eerie silence. It was like the heavens too were mourning in the face of victory. There was nothing triumphant about so much death. It didn’t feel like success at all. 

Thunder roared, lightning cracked viciously, and a vindictive rain was unleashed. Magical and sentient beings alike ignored the raging skies, continuing the arduous task of retrieving the bodies of the fallen. Family, friends, peers, all levitated or hand-carried into what was left of the Great Hall. All done with care and reverence and deep sadness. 

Everyone left the Aurors the task of lining up the lifeless bodies of the Death Eaters. No one else wanted to deal with them, and the authorities needed to know who had fled. They needed to have concise lists for the ones that would be at large. 

Fortunately, Hermione Granger was not charged with helping retrieve the fallen, nor with the Aurors’ work.

No, she had risen in the midst of the Weasleys’ grief. A cold chill had clawed its way up her spine, and she had been too weak to ignore the call. Stumbling through the carnage in a stupor, Hermione attempted to find the source of the voice in her head. It was like being caught in a current, the force pulling her to and fro until she was stopped by Harry and McGonagall. Even then, something clenched around her, and her body wasn’t quite her own. 

“Snape.” Hermione’s voice was a wavering rasp. “What about Snape?” 

Harry volunteered, but Hermione spoke firmly, whiskey brown eyes glazed over like Luna’s usual countenance. McGonagall was too busy directing people here and there, helping Madam Pomfrey with the injured. Ginny and the Weasleys needed Harry. Hermione would go. A special request made in a shaded alcove away from prying ears. Hermione would do it. 

No one paid Hermione any attention as she shuffled and stumbled through the mud and heavy rains. Wand hanging in loose fingers at her side, she flicked it lethargically at the splintered remains of the Whomping Willow when she neared. The twitching limbs of the tree levitated out of the way, shaking unsteadily in the air. Hunched over and gasping shallow breaths, she slid down into the tunnel beneath, as if she were merely a puppet being led around by some unknown, unseen force. Re-establishing the underground structure as she was pulled along, Hermione slumped and slid against the walls, blood oozing from the corner of her mouth with every wheezing cough that wracked her skeletal frame. She was far too malnourished, too exhausted.

She was dying. 

There was no turning back. She shouldn’t have hidden how grave her injuries were. The need for medical care had fallen to the wayside in the face of Molly Weasley’s wailing over the body of her dead son. One look around the Great Hall, and Hermione felt it would be too selfish to take a healer away from someone else who truly needed them. She could heal herself. Yet that had been forgotten, as well. 

A small, nagging voice had coiled in tendrils through the dark recesses of her mind. At first, she had ignored it. There was no reason for that voice to be in her mind. The locket horcrux had been destroyed weeks previously. Then it started whispering little half-truths, that voice. It was hollow and rasping as it weaved through the chaos of her thoughts until there was nothing left but an unshakeable desire to listen, obey. 

The minutes stretched on. Every so often that deep timbre floated to the surface. It broke her concentration, dragging out the journey to the Shrieking Shack and draining far more energy than she had in reserve. Little by little, she made progress. That strange, enveloping force dragging her closer. It breathed through her own disjointed thoughts, growing louder, stronger. 

A maelstrom thrashing in her ears. 

_ I’ve been waiting for you… _

_ Need you… _

_ Always… _

Hermione blinked, swaying to and fro. Standing in the center of a sitting room, she couldn’t remember anything after passing outside the grounds of Hogwarts. The room had begun to decompose, as if the last dregs of Dumbledore’s magic had finally faded away. The shack had always had an air of decay about it, like time had eroded the wood from the outside-in. Dust fell from the broken floorboards overhead as wind whistled through corroded walls. The dim light reflected off the airborne particles in eerie silence, creating a different world in that abandoned space. It was like stepping through into another realm. Everything was distorted by grey light edged in darkness. 

There was something in the air twisted unnaturally. The tangled curls at the nape of her neck raised. Hermione felt that there was something out of place, the world spinning out of her grasp. And then she noticed it. 

A pool of caking, congealed blood seeping through the wooden floor, but no Snape. 

No Snape. 

_ Come. To. Me.  _

Hermione staggered under the weight of that unbreakable force. Guided through the first floor of the shack, Hermione was on the verge of buckling under the weight of that voice. The hold on her was suffocating, like a vice, tugging her around by the hand. There should have been some shock, or questions that crowded her mind, one after the other, but there was nothing. Hermione was quiet, focused on the pull of the voice consuming her. Not even the blood bubbling up from her lungs, nor the rotting pieces of broken furniture could stop her from submitting to the overbearing will yanking her here and there. 

The expedition ended in front of a panel door to a cupboard under the dilapidated stairs. She didn’t want to open the door. What lay inside caused her to hesitate, limbs trembling in resistance to that extracting unknown. There was something preternatural beyond the barrier of cracked, peeling paint and clawed wood. Yet, as her body weakened, the power calling to her crested like a wave breaking against a shore. 

The inability to breathe gripped her chest. Blood gurgled up past her dry, split lips, as the decrepit door creaked open. 

What little color left in the world escaped. The pallid light in the shack incapable of permeating the darkness in that small, cramped space. In the farthest reaches of her mind, Hermione remembered that Harry had spent most of his life living in a cupboard under the stairs. That thought disappeared, fleeting, as if forced out by a guttural hiss of resentment whipping outward from within the closet. The air itself appeared to be composed of undulating wisps of smoke, a chasm of fathomless sea. Nothing would escape its depths. 

_ Come… _

Hermione’s foot slid through decades of grime, faltering on raised layers of wood. Each flimsy breath was a struggle. She had no life left, no air in her lungs. Though, as a pale face materialized, Hermione found the instinct to gasp easy. 

The Angel of Death emerging from the abyss of Hell itself. 

Wrenched off her feet, Hermione let loose a bloodcurdling scream as she was dragged into the shadows. 

_ The only evidence that she had been there was minimal. Hermione left behind fresh gouges in the wood, her wand, and one torn fingernail.  _


End file.
